Abstract
In the present study, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine the effects of prime–target repetition using a dichotic priming paradigm. Participants monitored a stream of target words in the right, attended ear for occasional animal names, and ERPs were recorded to nonanimal words that were either unrelated to or a repetition of prime words presented to the left ear. The prime words were spoken in a different voice and had a lower intensity than did the target words, and the prime word onset occurred 50 ms before target word onset. Repetition-priming effects were observed in the ERPs starting around 150 ms post-target-onset and continued to influence processing for the duration of the target stimuli. These priming effects provide further evidence in favor of parallel processing of overlapping dichotic stimuli, at least up to the level of some form of sublexical phonological representation, a likely locus for the integration of the two sources of information.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Given the evidence for a right-ear advantage in prior research on dichotic listening (e.g., Kimura, 1961), we presented to-be-attended stimuli to that ear in order to further bias processing toward the attended stimuli.
It has not gone unnoticed that the early dichotic repetition-priming effect found in the present work resembles the mismatch negativity (MMN) effect found in ERP studies using the so-called “oddball” paradigm (e.g., Näätänen, 2001), in terms of both the timing and the spatial distribution of these effects. The MMN is thought to require habituation to a standard (i.e., massively repeated) stimulus, prior to presentation of the deviant stimulus that generates an increased negativity. Clearly, this was not the case in the present study, in which repeated and different stimuli were equiprobable.
References
Bentin, S., Kutas, M., & Hillyard, S. A. (1995). Semantic processing and memory for attended and unattended words in dichotic listening: Behavioral and electrophysiological evidence. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 21, 54–67. doi:10.1037/0096-1523.21.1.54
Cutting, J. E. (1976). Auditory and linguistic processes in speech perception: Inferences from six fusions in dichotic listening. Psychological Review, 83, 114–140. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.83.2.114
Darwin, C. J., Brungart, D. S., & Simpson, D. B. (2003). Effects of fundamental frequency and vocal-tract length on attention to one of two simultaneous talkers. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 114, 2913–2922.
Dufour, S. (2008). Phonological priming in auditory word recognition: When both controlled and automatic processes are responsible for the effects. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62, 33–41. doi:10.1037/1196-1961.62.1.33
Dupoux, E., Kouider, S., & Mehler, J. (2003). Lexical access without attention? Explorations using dichotic priming. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 29, 172–184.
Grainger, J., Lopez, D., Eddy, M., Dufau, S., & Holcomb, P. J. (2012). How word frequency modulates masked repetition priming: An ERP investigation. Psychophysiology, 49, 604–616. doi:10.1111/j.1469-8986.2011.01337.x
Hannagan, T., Magnuson, J., & Grainger, J. (2013). Spoken word recognition without a TRACE. Frontiers in Language Sciences, 4, 563.
Hillyard, S. A., Hink, R. F., Schwent, V. L., & Picton, T. W. (1973). Electric signs of selective attention in the human brain. Science, 182, 177–179.
Holcomb, P. J., & Grainger, J. (2006). On the time course of visual word recognition: An event-related potential investigation using masked repetition priming. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 18, 1631–1643. doi:10.1162/jocn.2006.18.10.1631
Holender, D. (1986). Semantic activation without conscious identification in dichotic listening, parafoveal vision, and visual masking: A survey and appraisal. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 9, 1–23. doi:10.1017/S0140525X00021269. disc. 23–66.
Kimura, D. (1961). Cerebral dominance and the perception of verbal stimuli. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 15, 166–171.
Kolinsky, R., Morais, J., & Cluytens, M. (1995). Intermediate representations in spoken word recognition: Evidence from word illusions. Journal of Memory and Language, 34, 19–40.
Lachter, J., Forster, K. I., & Ruthruff, E. (2004). Forty-five years after Broadbent (1958): Still no identification without attention. Psychological Review, 111, 880–913. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.111.4.880
Mattys, S., & Melhorn, J. F. (2005). How do syllables contribute to the perception of spoken English? Insight from the migration paradigm. Language and Speech, 48, 223–253.
Näätänen, R. (2001). The perception of speech sounds by the human brain as reflected by the mismatch negativity (MMN) and its magnetic equivalent (MMNm). Psychophysiology, 38, 1–21. doi:10.1111/1469-8986.3810001
Okita, T., & Jibu, T. (1998). Selective attention and N400 attenuation with spoken word repetition. Psychophysiology, 35, 260–271.
Rivenez, M., Darwin, C. J., & Guillaume, A. (2006). Processing unattended speech. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 119, 4027–4040.
Sexton, M. A., & Geffen, G. (1981). Phonological fusion in dichotic monitoring. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 7, 422–429. doi:10.1037/0096-1523.7.2.422
Treisman, A. M. (1970). Perception and recall of simultaneous speech stimuli. Acta Psychologica, 33, 132–148.
Treisman, A. M. (1971). Shifting attention between the ears. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 23, 157–167. doi:10.1080/14640747108400236
Author note
This research was supported by Grant Numbers HD25889 and ERC 230313.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Grainger, J., Holcomb, P.J. An ERP investigation of dichotic repetition priming with temporally overlapping stimuli. Psychon Bull Rev 22, 289–296 (2015). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-014-0677-3
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-014-0677-3